


Sailing Full Circle

by Ultra



Series: Sparrabeth Alphabet [4]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Growing Old Together, Lineage & Legacies, Moving On, Old Married Couple, Pirates, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2019-07-03 21:25:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15827241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: When his father passes away, it is up to Captain Jack Sparrow to take his place in Shipwreck Cove, and allow his children, and their children, to continue his legacy on the Seven Seas.





	Sailing Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for florencia7.

It felt strange as he stepped out of the shadows into the vast empty room. He had scarcely been here since he was a child when the hall were not packed with Pirate Captains and their crews. This seemed too quiet, boring, and far too lonely. All he could do was thank a God that somehow still cared enough to keep him alive that he not have to do this all by himself.

With a sigh that did not suit him, Captain Jack Sparrow circled the chair that would be his own throne now, handed down through generations. He ran a ring-adorned hand along the back and the arm and then took his rightful place, the Keeper of the Codex, until the day he too would die.

“Rest in peace, Dad,” he said, eyes heavenward though he knew not why.

They were hardly men of honour, none of them, and yet Jack’s own bloodline were never such hardened criminals. Next to Blackbeard, even Barbossa, they were not so very much akin to the devil. Fast talkers, that was what they were, more famous by reputation and the stories they spun than anything else. If he were to be famous for anything, it was not a bad lot in life, he reckoned, but better yet to be known for victories and battles won. Himself and his beautiful wife, the Pirate King as she had once been known. Yes, let him be known as Captain Jack Sparrow who lured Elizabeth Swann to the high seas, and kept her at his side always and forever.

“You look like him,” his wife smiled as she appeared out of the darkness then to see Jack sat there, one leg over the arm of the throne once belonging to Teague, that was now his very own.

“Not true, luv,” he denied it with a shake of his head and a wicked smirk to follow. “I’m much better looking,” he assured her as she came closer and he took the opportunity to pull her into his lap.

Though they had aged thirty years and more from their first meeting, Jack and Elizabeth looked just the same to each other. Through the birthing of two children, battles untold, life and death and worse, Jack saw no sign that his Lizzie had diminished in beauty. Just the same, she saw no signs that her husband and Captain had become an old man, though he had always been so much her senior. His eyes and his smile were forever young, sparkling and playful to the point of wicked at times. They loved each other still, so very much. They had come to this point together and were ready for this new chapter of their lives to start.

“The fleet will be ready to depart by nightfall,” she said softly, lips close enough to kiss. “Better to use the cover of darkness than wait until first light.”

He nodded his agreement as they shared a kiss, drawing strength from each other. It would be difficult to say goodbye, even for a short while, to their loved ones. Tonight their son and daughter, complete with families of their own, would sail away from Shipwreck Cove on a brand new adventure that Jack and Lizzie were not to be a part of. They said goodbye to the sea as well as to their children, and that was perhaps the biggest wrench of all.

“Not sure how I’d do this without you, Lizzie,” he told her, strangely serious in his words for a man often willing to find the silly or superficial in all things.

“You’ll never have to be without me, Jack,” she promised.

They began to kiss again, the empty room around them the whole world in that moment. Nothing existed but the two of them and time was to be forgotten. They had until nightfall to make this place their own, and so they did.

* * *

“It feels so strange.” Annabella sighed as she fought to fasten her dress high up her back. “To know my father and mother will not sail the seas anymore... Surely such a thing will see the world tip off its axis!” she declared with a growl of frustration when the hooks and eyes of her gown still alluded her.

“Breathe, my darling Bella,” her husband urged her as he turned to give assistance to her plight and her mood both. “I mean no dispresect, of course, but Jack is of such an age now, perhaps this retirement of a kind will do him good?” he suggested. “In any case, his role is an important one, if I understand correctly. The Keeper of the Code, as your Grandfather Teague was, it is hardly a title to be scoffed at,” he reminded her as he finished with her dress and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind.

“You are perfectly right, Tom, I know,” she sighed as she leaned back against him, her wonderful husband of almost ten years. “I am only grateful that I should not be left alone by their absence.” She smiled as she turned in his arms then and pushed her body close to his as she kissed him.

“Mama! Mama!” a little voice calling pulled the couple apart. “Do I have to wear the ribbons?” asked Tom and Bella’s elder daughter with a huff.

“Indeed, Bess, you certainly do,” her mother told her firmly, kneeling down to the nine year olds' level in order to help tie bows into her hair. “These belonged to your Grandma Elizabeth, and then to me. Now they are yours and on this special occasion must certainly be worn.”

“No-one makes Jack or Henry wear so many ribbons,” the little girl groused, and Bella bit her lip trying not to laugh.

“That is because your cousin and brother are boys,” Tom explained to her. “Only young ladies like yourself get the privilege of wearing such pretty things.”

A winning smile appeared on the face of young Elizabeth then, as pretty as her namesake in her new dress and ribbons. Immediately her demeanour changed on hearing she was special and that much better and more privileged than her young brother and cousin.

“Speaking of the boys...” Bella began only to wince a moment later as a crashing sound emanated from the deck above.

“No need to ask where they are then.” Her husband rolled his eyes, even as John bellowed at his son and nephew for causing trouble.

They really did not have the time for such problems, they were already late for dinner.

* * *

Around the table together for the final time for goodness only knew how long, Captain Jack Sparrow surveyed the scene with a smile that showed the white and gold of his teeth. To think, he had always thought to be his own man, a lone wolf, to sail the seas, seducing maidens and hunting buried treasure until the sea should see fit to swallow him whole. Things had turned out so very differently, and yet he had never been happier.

At the other end of the long table, his dearest Elizabeth was smiling similarly at the sight. Between them on one side was Bella, Tom, young Bess, and little Henry who only just now reached his plate without trouble at the age of six. On the other side, the lad they had called Johnny as a boy was now a grown man with a wife of his own, and Sophia had borne him two beautiful children, Jack to carry on the family name, now aged seven, and little Freddie, still a babe who was laid in a crib close by. Sophia was a credit to the family, an abandoned child herself who had sought solace on the high seas, and found the family she never had with the son of two pirate legends. She fit in as if born to do so.

Tonight, the two young families set sail, bound for the open sea and adventures untold. Annabella sailed the Black Pearl, inherited from her parents and now her very own to call home and freedom. John captained the more lately built sister ship, the Free Spirit. With them went three more ships of pirate allies, a fleet to work together and vanquish any enemy that crossed their path. There were more and more foes to the pirates as the world seemed to grow smaller with every rising and setting of the sun. Still, these people kept their freedom, plotted their course, staked their claim, kept on pushing to find their next horizon.

Nobody said goodbye when the time came, though hands were shaken, hugs and kisses exchanged. There was many a tear blinked back from an eye, but no words of parting ever spoken. This was not the end, only a new beginning, even as Jack and Elizabeth waved their children and grandchildren away from Shipwreck Cove, knowing there was a chance, however slim, that they would never again come back.

“Are you alright, Jack?” asked Elizabeth as she clung to his side on the shoreline, the two of them just barely illuminated by the half moon above them. “Do you not think we can be happy here?”

“I know we can, darlin’,” he husband promised her, wrapping an arm around her, and bringing her head to rest on his shoulder. “Spent years enough chasing my horizon. Now I’ve got the rest of my years to enjoy living in it, with the most beautiful woman who ever sailed the seas.” He smiled before moving enough to bring his lips to hers in a sweet but passionate kiss.

“How does it feel to be part of history, Captain Sparrow?” Elizabeth smiled then as they parted and turned to walk back along the sand and rocks to their new home. “You shall be quite famous in legend, I am sure, for all your adventures.”

“And yet you will be more famous, Lizzie, dear,” he assured her, making her look at him curiously then. “For you were the only one to ever catch and keep a hold of the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow!”

Elizabeth’s laughter carried across the water of the cove, mixing with Jack’s own chuckling as they danced like children in the moonlight. Across the seven seas, they had found all they ever wanted and more. The treasure they uncovered was love to last forever. No-one could ask for anything more than that.


End file.
